November 23rd, 2009 by DrWes in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion
Tags: Cardiology, Internal Medicine, Medicare, Nocturnists, On-Call, Pay Cuts, Salary, Shift Work
No Comments »
Should there be a premium added to physician compensation for on-call coverage after hours, or are Medicare rates enough?
This appears to be the central question between two competing hospitals in Longview, Texas where a $300,000 stipend was paid to a cardiology group by one hospital and not the other for cardiology on-call coverage.
Guess which one the doctors are promoting now? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
November 23rd, 2009 by KevinMD in Better Health Network, Opinion
Tags: Disrespect, Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Medical School, Primary Care
No Comments »
In medical schools, primary care continues to be among the least respected fields a student can choose.
No where is that more starkly illustrated than in Pauline Chen’s recent New York Times piece, where she tells a story of a bright medical student who had the audacity to choose primary care as a career:
Kerry wanted to become a primary care physician.
Some of my classmates were incredulous. In their minds, primary care was a backup, something to do if one failed to get into subspecialty training. “Kerry is too smart for primary care,” a friend said to me one evening. “She’ll spend her days seeing the same boring chronic problems, doing all that boring paperwork and just coordinating care with other doctors when she could be out there herself actually doing something.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
November 21st, 2009 by Peggy Polaneczky, M.D. in Better Health Network, Opinion
Tags: Cancer Prevention, Gina Kolata, New York Times, NYT, Obstetrics And Gynecology, Oncology, Pharmaceuticals, Raloxifene, Tamoxifen
No Comments »
In yet another article addressing the war on cancer, The New York Times today tackles cancer prevention, focusing on alternative and mainstream Pharma products marketed to reduce the risk for cancer.
While author Gina Kolata seems to have done her homework when it comes to the failure of alternative medicine to prevent cancer, she has missed the story completely when it comes to telling why the medical profession and patients may have failed to embrace Big Pharma’s push to use their drugs to prevent breast and prostate cancer. Of course, that’s not surprising since almost exclusively, the experts she interviewed were those who conducted the clinical trials of these drugs. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Blog that Ate Manhattan*
November 21st, 2009 by DrCharles in Better Health Network, News, Opinion
Tags: Desiree Jennings, Dystonia, Flu Vaccine, H1N1, Neurology, Safety, Swine Flu
1 Comment »
In my efforts to have a rational discussion about the H1N1 flu shot I have been increasingly confronted with the following fear, expressed most commonly by concerned mothers and teenagers:
Did you see that video on Youtube about the cheerleader who got the flu shot? Something called dystonia? She can’t walk unless she goes backwards. I don’t want to risk ending up like that.
Apparently Inside Edition broadcast a story featuring a woman who claims to have a movement disorder she attributes to an adverse effect of the seasonal flu shot. I had to take a look at this video along with the millions of other viewers. Here it is: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Examining Room of Dr. Charles*
November 19th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: ACOG, ACS, CNN, Debate, Guidelines, Mammograms, Mammography, USPSTF
No Comments »
I was having an interesting Twitter chat with online friends (Liz Cohen @, Dr. Chuk Onyeije @; Dr. David Gorski @gorskon; Dr. Marya Zilberberg @murzee; Sherry Reynolds @cascadia; and @speakhealth) about the mammogram debate. They asked me “where I drew the line” on paying for expensive screening tests that may save lives but require unnecessary surgery for countless others. My opinion takes into account human nature and political savvy rather than pure science and statistics on this one.
To me, the bottom line is that the mammogram is a sloppy screening test. It’s expensive, there are lots of false positives and unnecessary surgeries, yet it saves occasional lives (which is dramatic and meaningful). We have to appreciate that women have come to accept the risks/benefits of this test, and have been told for a long time that they should begin screening at age 40.
It’s not emotionally or politically possible to reverse course on this recommendation until a better choice is available. You can trade the mammogram for a better test, but you can’t trade it for doing nothing. The amount of drama associated with the perception of having something potentially life-saving taken away is just not worth the cost savings. It may be a reasonable value judgment based on the data, but it’s not politically feasible so we should mentally take it off the table. Read more »
